Race And Utopian Desire In American Literature And Society

Bringing together a variety of scholarly voices, this book argues for the necessity of understanding the important role literature plays in crystallizing the ideologies of the oppressed, while exploring the necessarily racialized character of utopian thought in American culture and society. Utopia in everyday usage designates an idealized fantasy place, but within the interdisciplinary field of utopian studies, the term often describes the worldviews of non-dominant groups when they challenge the ruling order. In a time when white supremacy is reasserting itself in the US and around the world, there is a growing need to understand the vital relationship between race and utopia as a resource for resistance. Utopian literature opens up that relationship by envisioning and negotiating the prospect of a better future while acknowledging the brutal past. The collection fills a critical gap in both literary studies, which has largely ignored the issue of race and utopia, and utopian studies, which has said too little about race.

This book surveys reimaginings of race by US American utopian novelists including Dorothy Bryant, Marge Piercy, Samuel Delany, Octavia Butler and Kim Stanley Robinson. It argues that our utopian dreams cannot be furthered unless we come to terms with the phenomenology of race and the impasse of the individual in liberal humanist democracy.

The Palgrave Handbook of Utopian and Dystopian Literatures celebrates a literary genre already over 500 years old. Specially commissioned essays from established and emerging international scholars reflect the vibrancy of utopian vision, and its resiliency as idea, genre, and critical mode. Covering politics, environment, geography, body and mind, and social organization, the volume surveys current research and maps new areas of study. The chapters include investigations of anarchism, biopolitics, and postcolonialism and study film, art, and literature. Each essay considers central questions and key primary works, evaluates the most recent research, and outlines contemporary debates. Literatures of Africa, Australia, China, Latin America, and the Middle East are discussed in this global, cross-disciplinary, and comprehensive volume.

From the short stories and journalism of Sui Sin Far to Maxine Hong Kingston's pathbreaking The Woman Warrior to recent popular and critical successes such as Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer, Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians, Asian North American literature and media encompass a long history and a diverse variety of genres and aesthetic approaches. The essays in this volume provide context for understanding the history of Asian immigrants to the United States and Canada and the experiences of their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Contributors address historical contexts, from the early enactment of Asian exclusion laws to the xenophobia following 9/11, and provide tools for textual analysis. The essays explore conventionally literary texts, genres such as mystery and speculative fiction, historical documents and legal texts, and visual media including films, photography, and graphic novels, emphasizing the ways that creators have crossed boundaries of genre and produced innovative new forms.

Science Fiction and Anticipation: Utopias, Dystopias and Time Travel presents ten chapters discussing themes related to time travel, utopias, and dystopias in science fiction novels published in America and Europe between the 18th and 20th century. These themes include social progress, freedom and human rights, technological advances, and the issues of ethics, racism, sexism, censorship, and slavery. The contributors analyze novels such as The Year 2440 published in 1771, Paris in the Twentieth Century written by Jules Verne, Blake; or, The Huts of America by Martin Robinson Delany, The Amphibian Man by Alexander Belyaev, Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov, Ashes, Ashes by René Barjavel, The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster, Morel’s Invention by Adolfo Bioy Casares, and writers of Spanish, Argentinian, English, and French fictions such as George Orwell, Eduardo Ladislao Holmberg and Leopoldo Antonio Lugones Argüello. This book notably presents their sources and influence, the accuracy of their predictions, and their relevance in our very unstable world.

"White Power and American Neoliberal Culture uncovers the intersection of two seemingly separate cultural forces in the US: white power ideology and neoliberalism. Working through artifacts such as utopian fiction, manifestos written by white power terrorists, neoliberal think tank reports, and neoconservative policy statements, the authors analyze the current forms of white supremacy and neoliberal racial capitalism to show how they reinforce each other by fetishizing the white family. Drawing on scholars from a wide variety of disciplines, the book contextualizes the increase of both white ethnonationalism and social and economic inequality that mark the US in the 2020s"--

One of the most popular shows to come out of Shondaland, Shonda Rhimes’s production company, is ABC’s political drama Scandal (2012–18)—a series whose tremendous success and marketing savvy led LA Times critic Mary McNamara to hail it as “the show that Twitter built” and Time magazine to name its protagonist as one of the most influential fictional characters of 2013. The series portrays a fictional Washington, DC, and features a diverse group of characters, racially and otherwise, who gather around the show’s antiheroine, Olivia Pope, a powerful crisis manager who happens to have an extramarital affair with the president of the United States. For seven seasons, audiences learned a great deal about Olivia and those interwoven in her complex world of politics and drama, including her team of “gladiators in suits,” with whom she manages the crises of Washington’s political elite. This volume, named for both Olivia’s team and the show’s fans, analyzes the communication, politics, stereotypes, and genre techniques featured in the television series while raising key questions about the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and viewing audiences. The essays range from critical looks at various members of Scandal’s ensemble, to in-depth analyses of the show’s central themes, to audience reception studies via interviews and social media analysis. Additionally, the volume contributes to research on femininity, masculinity, and representations of black womanhood on television. Ultimately, this collection offers original and timely perspectives on what was one of America’s most “scandalous” prime-time network television series.

This edited collection examines the central role that webs of kinship and families play in the fiction of N.K. Jemisin, arguing that they ca function as centers of resistance, means of oppression, or both. In doing so, Jemisin's work challenges readers to re-imagine the intimate relations of their present.